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The Vietnam War and Its Impact - Political lessons

Photo by: Emir Simsek

The meaning of the Vietnam War for American foreign policy remains a
hotly contested and unresolved issue. Most aspects of the war remain
open to dispute, ranging from the wisdom of U.S. involvement to the
reasoning behind continued escalation and final withdrawal.

The political legacies of the war began to surface even before North
Vietnam's victory in 1975. A powerful domestic antiwar movement
that arose in the mid-1960s influenced a bipartisan group of U.S.
congresspersons who by 1970 began to question openly the commitment of
American troops to conflicts of uncertain national importance. Their
doubts were enhanced by the fact that Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and
Nixon sent U.S. forces into Vietnam with little regard for congressional
approval. Passage of the War Powers Resolution by both houses of
Congress and over President Nixon's veto in 1973 signaled that
American politicians and the public would no longer allow presidents to
single-handedly dictate military policy as commander in chief of the
armed forces.

The War Powers Resolution mandated that U.S. presidents inform Congress
within forty-eight hours of a troop commitment in the absence of a
declaration of war. If Congress does not declare war within sixty days
of the commitment, the president must terminate the use of U.S. military
forces, unless he has sought in writing a thirty-day extension of the
deadline. Since its passage, however, the War Powers Resolution has made
little impact on presidential warmaking because creative ways have been
found to circumvent its limitations.

More important as a brake on presidential war policy is the Vietnam
syndrome, a catchall phrase that describes the public's
impatience for protracted American wars based on vague policy goals.
Most pronounced from the American withdrawal in 1973 to the Gulf War in
1991, the Vietnam syndrome congealed after the war as the public mood
slid toward isolation and the belief that troops should be committed
only in cases of national invasion. This sentiment handcuffed President
Jimmy Carter's ability to use military force to free American
hostages in Iran in 1979 and 1980, and deterred President Ronald Reagan
from seeking congressional approval to fund the Nicaraguan contras in
the early 1980s.

During his first term in office, President Ronald Reagan assured the
nation that there would be "no more Vietnams," a refrain
also echoed by George H. W. Bush during his presidency. To
conservatives, this meant that U.S. troops would never again fight a war
without the necessary full political support to win it. To others, it
meant that popular opinion would now limit any extensions of American
military power across the globe. The public would not support a troop
commitment to another war against communists, even in the Western
Hemisphere. Mistrust spawned by the Vietnam conflict led Reagan's
foreign policymakers to cover up arms deals during the Iran-Contra
affair.

American invasions of Grenada and Panama in the 1980s were short-lived
partly because of executive fears of escalating military involvement
without strong public support. The deaths of more than two hundred
marines at a base in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983 threatened to rekindle the
nightmare of Vietnam once again. But the victorious Gulf War of 1991 did
much to remove the enormous burden of the Vietnam conflict from the back
of American foreign policy.

In the invasion plan to oust the Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait, General
Norman Schwarzkopf, a Vietnam veteran, remembered lessons of Southeast
Asia. He helped to limit the information released about the conflict (to
prevent another "living-room" television war) and
patiently built up his forces to maximum strength before attacking Iraqi
troops. The architects of the Gulf War also relied on precision bombing
rather than ground troops in order to minimize casualties and preserve
public support for the war. President Bush successfully mollified the
public's post-Vietnam fears of wasteful wars fought by poor men
by pledging to do away with college draft deferments, if the draft was
reinstated, and by calling for unqualified patriotic support to honor
the 500,000 servicemen sent to the Gulf.

Following the Persian Gulf War the American public showered returning
troops with a level of adulation not witnessed in the United States
since 1945, and cracks became visible in the Vietnam syndrome. But
hesitation in committing troops to Bosnia and the withdrawal from
Somalia stemmed in part from Clinton administration fears that the
conflicts there would escalate and damage American credibility, as with
Vietnam. Strong domestic support for a precision bombing campaign over
Kosovo in 1999, however, demonstrated how far the American public had
drifted from the antiwar fervor of the early 1970s.

As time healed the wounds of violence and bloodshed, the impact of the
Vietnam conflict still lingered for the Vietnamese and American people.
But a new phase began, characterized by hope, new friendships, and
cultural and political exchange unprecedented in the history of two
nations once at war.

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